The invention is directed to a padded garment and in particular to a chamber padded glove, boot or other article of clothing.
Gloves have been padded in various different ways to protect the hand of the wearer during different types of activities. Ski gloves, work gloves, bicycle gloves and hockey gloves have been padded to protect the wearer's hands against injury due to violent contact which is expected in these intended uses.
In the past, glove makers have tried various different approaches to pad the outer portion of the glove, i.e., the portion covering the top of the wearer's hands and fingers. Unfortunately, when padding had been added to the outside of the glove, the padding restricts the flexibility of the glove. The padding, which has been added both to the inside and outside surfaces of the top of the glove stiffens the glove and provides a substantial barrier to necessary flexibility of the fingers.
For example, it is important in ski gloves, particularly those designed for use by a ski racer, that there be enough padding on the outside of the glove to protect the skier's hands in a fall and when skiing slalom gates. When skiing slalom gates good technique requires the skier to attempt to hit each slalom gate as it is passed.
Several different types of padding have been added to gloves to protect the wearer's hand. One type of padding is a hard padding added to or molded on the exterior of the glove in large sections. This type of padding, while protecting the wearer's hand, severely restricts the flexibility of the glove. This sort of glove is not particularly useful in applications where flexibility of the fingers and hand are required. Unfortunately, most glove applications require some flexibility for comfort and utility.
A second type of padding is formed of smaller hard pads which are sewn, molded to or otherwise attached to the exterior of the glove. The pads are often molded plastic, metal or rubber. Generally, these armored gloves have padding over the portions of the glove which do not cover the wearer's joints. In this way, the flexibility of the glove is maintained by these articulated pads because the portion of the glove over the joints, which rotate and expand when the hand is curled inward toward a fist position, is unencumbered by padding.
This approach has two very severe drawbacks. The first is that the joints of the fingers and hand are relatively unprotected and the protection offered by the gloves is reduced. The second problem with this approach is the substantial cost associated with manufacture. To implement this sort of armored articulated glove, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,234, requires the molding and cutting of about 25 separate pads, some of which are quite small. Then, each of the pads must be individually attached to the exterior of the glove. In addition, there must be separate sets of the protector pads for each of the different sizes of gloves. A particular finger pad for a men's large size glove would likely be inappropriate for another size glove, such a men's medium size glove or a ladies medium size glove. In addition, the assembly of a glove with so many specialized pieces would be difficult. Thus, the costs associated with development, manufacture and assembly of such a glove are particularly high and the benefits limited.
Similarly, the protective work glove disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,612 includes stiff protective members which seriously restrict the flexibility of the glove in use. In addition, the protective members must be separately configured for each size of glove as well as sizing the protective members for each of the different fingers.
The batting glove disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,942,975 includes a pair of protective plates attached to the back surface of the batting glove. The large pads do not cover the finger tips and due to their size will tend to restrict the flexibility of the hand in motion.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,914 is directed to a hard-grip glove which utilizes a coiling mechanism for aiding gripping and providing some padding. This approach suffers from many of the same disabilities described above including poor protection of the wearer's fingers and difficulty of manufacture and assembly.
Other approaches which have been developed include the placement of a free floating pad in a closed chamber on top of the hand portion of the glove to contain the padding. However, this approach, which utilizes a chamber covering the entire back surface of the glove which is secured around the top edge of the glove, restricts flexibility due to the glove's resistance to the change in hand geometry caused by the curling of the wearer's hand and requires sewing additional layers of material in the finger crotch regions. Specifically, the length and circumference of the finger portions and hand portions of the glove must increase as the wearer's fingers are curled inward toward a fist position to accommodate these changes in the hand and finger geometry. Gloves which have pads attached to the outside of the glove around areas of the surface tend to restrain the glove from increasing its geometry to adapt to the increased size of the hand in this condition.
Another problem with padding gloves, particularly on the fingers, is the difficulty of sewing the crotch region if padding is added to the crotch. The crotch region of the glove is the V-shaped area where the bases of the fingers of the glove are attached. If padding is added to the glove around the crotch this makes assembly significantly more difficult and affects the geometry of the glove, changing the fit of the glove and the manner in which it responds to hand movements.
Similar problems exist in connection with the padding of boots, shoes, pants, such as ski pants, ski jackets and other padded garments.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved padded glove for protecting the fingers, knuckles and other parts of the glove without making the glove too rigid or difficult to manufacture or assemble. Particularly, there is a need for padding which is uniform for various sizes of gloves so that separate molds or pads do not have to be created for each of the fingers for each of the different sizes of gloves. Also there is a need for a glove which may be padded without affecting the fit or restricting the changes in geometry of the glove during use.